Of Caverns and Casters ✓ [TLRQ #1]

Chapter 43 - Aster

I glance through them. Neat, tiny handwriting covers the papers' surfaces. The left side lists Avadelian words, and short paragraphs in a foreign, swirling script cover the right.

"This is very detailed. What is this language? It's not Morineause or Bedeveirian."

"Errelian." She takes them back.

"The language of your hometown?" I guess.

She nods as she folds them away. "You changed the conversation again."

My eyes widen. "I'm sorry. It was not intentional. Habit, I suppose." I smile.

"You... dodge questions by habit?"

I pause. "It sounds strange when you say it like that."

"It sounds normal when you say it another way?"

"Ahm." I rub the back of my neck. "No, I suppose. But it does when you don't really think about it much."

"Maybe you should think about things more, then." There's a mischievous glint in her eyes.

I laugh. "Perhaps. But perhaps you think about things too much."

She tilts her head, giving me a sly look. "Never. You never can. Now, then. Stop dodging." She taps my knee with the blackwood bowl. "How did you do the trick?"

I grin. "No tricks."

She rolls her eyes. "How did you do the 'magic?'"

"I spoke the proper phrases of the Old Tongue and followed the proper ritual, using the proper materials, and all with the proper timing." She laughs at me. "But that one's actually a pretty easy spell."

"Easy trick, you mean," she teases.

Her insistence that I'm a fraud grates on me, but I keep up my easy smile. "I don't understand why you so distrust magic. I've never met someone that doesn't know about it."

"I know about it. I know that it's not real." I laugh at the wordplay but frustration still reigns. She smiles. "In my... hometown, everyone knows that 'magician,' like you say, really means 'vihnzeirre.' A, ah..." she pauses, thinking. "A trickster. That's what Sean called you yesterday when you told us who you are."

"Like the pickpockets on the streets?"

"A pickpocket is a thief, yes?" I nod, and she continues. "Some are. Others, ah, beg."

"I know what you mean. But," I say, "I promise I am not a thief or a beggar. I work for the Morineause castle." I have seen such beggars in the market, performing fake magic for passersby and the hope of a coin or two. Any educated person can easily spot a fake like that, though, and the insinuation that I am no different bothers me. I may not be much of a caster, but I am not a trickster.

"That is a good story for a thief."

I tilt my head at her. "Magic is real." An idea sparks in my mind. "Let me prove it."

"Oh?" Interest and confidence lights in her eyes at the challenge. "Sure. Let us see you 'prove it.'"

"Alright then." I pick up the bowl. "I need to fill this with water."

"Let me," she offers.

I pass it to her. "Only about half-way."

She can't ruin the spell, if that is her goal. A smile plays at my lips, imagining the shock she's in for. When she returns with the bowl, I motion for her to sit. "Who do you want me to scry?" Her eyebrows come together, and I simplify. "Give me the name of someone you know."

She seems suspicious, but responds, "Tavion Zahir."

I nod, pulling the Book from my cloak and carefully removing the protective cloth. I lay the pages open across my knee, glance over the spell words, and grab a pinch of arcanum powder to sprinkle in two clockwise circles over the water. Muttering, I pull my casting knife back out of my cloak and lightly slide it across my palm. Thick red wells up in the line, and the light glints on the emerging ichor. I close my hand into a fist. Three circles counterclockwise of blood-drops fall into the bowl while my incantation crescendos. With my other hand, I barely dip my thumb into the water and swipe the red-green liquid across her forehead.

She jerks back, but as I breathe the name she gave, she leans forward again, attention rapt on the water in the bowl. In the image, a pale-skinned boy around our age lazes on a metal bench at a crowded table, arm draped around a slender blonde. Resting in their hands, cups of twisted blown-glass hold drinks with frothed tops. The busy movement and smoky lighting of the room reminds me of a tavern, but it looks more like something from a dream than the real world.

Now that the initial casting is over, I feel the tug of the magic more acutely, escalating as the spell continues. Blood trickles down my lip, and I dash my fingers through the water, disturbing the surface and ending the spell.

An overly silent pause fills the air while my head spins, and I wonder if I overdid it with the spell. Then, brow furrowed, Leavi stands. Distractedly, she mutters, "It was a good trick."

Before I'm able to reply, she walks away.